Oh my word, I love these weird ‘n wonderful things so much! These sculptures are by American artist Joe Davidson, and yes, that final piece is sitting beside a painting by one of my favorite artists (and people!), Samantha Fields. You’ll see why in a minute… So, I asked Joe what these squishy but not squishy at all, pastel-hued, plaster balloon/sausages were all about, and this is what he told me:

“I love the fact that these have obvious references to Koons (for the acidic celebratory balloon sculptures) and Bourgeois (for the anthropomorphic nature of the forms). My forms are obviously quite phallic, and it makes me think about our notions of masculinity, emasculation, age, etc. As I recently hit my 50’s, these things are creeping in to my mind. What I like about pairing my work with Sam is it puts these works in a larger, less personal conversation about the idea of the male ‘take-the-land’ attitude under which we live, and our collective questioning of that principle.”

You can see this group show, titled “Personal Contacts #3″, until September 5th at Durdan and Ray in Los Angeles… and TONIGHT, Monday August 31, Joe will be talking to Samantha via a live Zoom talk, about this six-part series titled ‘that explores novel approaches to community curation.’ It starts at 7pm, Joe & Sam will be on around 7:45pm. Here’s the Zoom link.